NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

MoPoshy Absolutely brilliant

Lela The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

SnoopyStyle Actor Jake Scully (Craig Wasson) finds himself suffering from claustrophobia and he's later fired. He goes home and catches his girlfriend cheating on him. He is befriended by Sam Bouchard (Gregg Henry) who offers him a place to stay. Sam shows him a telescope trained on a scantily-clad neighbor. He becomes obsessed with the woman and starts following her. She is Gloria Revelle (Deborah Shelton) and he comes to her rescue with a purse snatcher. He continues to spy on her when the thief shows up and murders her. Then he notices a tattoo on porn actress Holly Body (Melanie Griffith) that is the same as the one spied on Gloria.It's director Brian De Palma and Melanie Griffith as the Body. It's salacious and devious. I'm not sure that the premise completely works. There's no need for a false alibi with the Body. The alibi shouldn't work in the actual murder. I don't think the premise works but I'm not sure. Craig Wasson is a solid everyman actor although the role may fit better a matinee idol. He is the lead actor in the movie within the movie after all. Despite that, this is deviously voyeuristic and deliciously sexy.

oOoBarracuda I have never had such a hot and cold cinematic relationship that I have with Brian De Palma. Carrie was great, The Untouchables was great, Carlito's Way was phenomenal. Then there's Raising Cain, Scarface, and now Body Double that I don't simply dislike, but I loathe them. Body Double was the director's 1984 feature film starring Craig Wasson and Melanie Griffith that was maybe supposed to be an homage to Alfred Hitchcock but which actually made his film Vertigo into complete trash. The film chronicles a young actor's obsession with his neighbor that gets him entangled in a series of life-threatening events. Satirizing two of Hitchcock's most well- known features was the result of whatever Body Double was supposed to be, and I doubt that has anything to do with the director's intent or a testament to his skill. I really don't know what happened between the concept and the execution; heck, I still don't even really know what Body Double was supposed to be, but it struck all the wrong chords with me. I guess De Palma is going to continue to be a director whose output I either love or loathe, which will probably force me to see everything he does just to see where I fall.Jake Scully (Craig Wasson) is an actor struggling through his current project when he comes home to find his girlfriend in bed with another man. (He makes this discovery in the most Mulholland Drive kind of way, which is one of the film's few good standout moments, for me). As Jake contemplates his next move and his next acting job, he meets an actor who needs a house sitter which is perfect for the newly homeless Jake. As Jake is being toured through the home learning the place he will be taken care of, the owner of the home is quick to show Jake his favorite neighbor. Across the street, there is a Ms. Torso-like woman who regularly parades in front of her window naked. The homeowner has positioned a telescope aimed directly at the neighbor's home that Jake is more than welcome to use through his stay there. Throughout his nightly viewing, Jake becomes completely obsessed with the neighbor and vows to meet her. The opportunity finally presents itself when Jake decides to act heroically and chase down a man who stole the neighbor's purse. Soon after Jake witnesses a murder, then learns that the police love pinning crimes on peeping toms. Without intervention from the police, Jake decides to hunt down the perpetrators all on his own. I thought Body Double was going to be in the category of De Palma films that I enjoyed. The set up was wonderful, I especially appreciated the attention to detail De Palma paid to the world surrounding Jake. There was such intricate detail filling the small places Jake went or passed that was not lost on the audience. It was so fun to see the realism of the coffee shop Jake sits in and the people he passes. The film really loses it's footing for me when it tries to emulate a Hitchcock film. When Body Double switched from Rear Window to Vertigo I could not have wanted to check out more. I don't even like Vertigo that much yet, but I would have much rather watched that than Body Double. The lead actor, Craig Wasson, was an incredibly bland choice, which I understand was part of the intention but he doesn't pull off vanilla as well as the Jimmy Stewart archetype he was supposed to be. The music was poor, the plot was a mess, and the women in the film were terribly depicted. I have an odd enduring interest in De Palma despite my many failings with his output.

FlashCallahan After struggling actor Jake Scully finds his girlfriend in bed with another man, he moves out and accepts an offer from fellow struggling actor Sam Bouchard to house-sit for a few weeks. Apart from getting to live in an ultramodern house, he also get to watch a neighbour do a sexy dance in front of her window every night at exactly the same time. He becomes infatuated, following her around and eventually meeting her. She also has another admirer however and while watching her one night through his telescope, Jake sees her murdered by this other man. The police are dubious about what he claims to have seen, but the case takes a bizarre turn when, while watching TV, he sees a porn star do the exact same dance he had watched for all those nights. He soon realises he has been an unwitting accomplice in a complex plot.De Palma has always referenced Hitchcock in his movies, and here, it's his rear window, and the concept is as bonkers and as brilliant as the decade it was made in.There are many interpretations of the films narrative, and this is why it demands repeat viewings. Is it all in Jakes head while he is suffering his bout of claustrophobia? So the only parts of the film that are real are the initial scene with him in the coffin, and then him being helped out of the coffin. After all, the majority of the film is almost dreamlike, thanks to the wonderful eye De Palma has, most noticeably the scene in the shopping mall where Jake sees the Indian following his victim from afar.The film can be seen as a wonderful epitaph to the decade that fashion, music and taste forgot, and no matter how garish the make up, clothes and sets are, it just adds so much t the narrative.It's a definite conversation piece, there are plot holes aplenty, but this just adds to the argument of where reality ends and the subconscious starts in the films narrative.And it also adds much evidence to my theory that 1984 was the best year for movies ever.It's a bonkers piece for sure, but it's thrilling, and never let's up the craziness.Essential viewing.

zetes Poorly plotted Hitchcock rip-off, which is too often the case with De Palma. This one particularly suffers because the lead actor (Craig Wasson) is absolutely terrible. Who could have possibly allowed him to be the lead in a movie? He's so wishy-washy and unlikable. I mean, the guy is such a wimp that he almost has a heart attack due to his claustrophobia when he finds himself in a tunnel the size of my apartment. The only ace this movie has up its sleeve is Melanie Griffith at her absolute hottest co-starring as a porn star, and she doesn't even show up until an hour into the film. The plot revolves around Wasson peeping at the neighbor woman (Deborah Shelton) when he's housesitting for a guy he just befriended (Gregg Henry). He sees a strange man hanging around Shelton, and decides to get involved.